The present invention is directed to the field of soil stabilization and particularly to providing nonshrinking, nonsubsiding backfill for trenches or soil surfaces which permits immediate restoration to a usable surface.
Many surfaces such as paved surfaces must be torn up in order to attend to some subsurface matter such as a ruptured pipe or placement of new underground facilities. After the subsurface matter has been attended to the material removed from the hole, commonly known as "spoil", is then placed back in the hole, tamped into place and one must wait until the surface has sufficiently stabilized before repaving. In situations where trafficked surfaces are involved, this has presented quite a time problem since the area must remain closed to traffic for a period of time for the soil to stabilize before it can be restored as a trafficable surface. This problem is compounded in many cases where there has been, for example, a water leak and the resultant soil is quite wet. It takes a long period of time before such soil becomes sufficiently conditioned to permit its reuse as a trafficable surface.
Efforts to ameliorate this problem have included admixing of various materials with the soil in an effort to overcome this problem, most usually materials such as quick lime in the form of stones. These are not suitable with dry spoil and while generally suitable in cases where the soil is wet, they still are not sufficiently rapid in their action to provide a stable, nonshrinking, nonsubsiding backfill which permits almost immediate restoration of the surface for use by vehicles, pedestrians and the like.